Tesla is embroiled in an increasingly bitter dispute with union members in Sweden and neighboring countries. The showdown pits electric car maker CEO Elon Musk, who is staunchly anti-union, against the Scandinavian countries' strongly held worker ideals.
None of Tesla's workers in the world are unionized, raising questions about whether strikes could spread to other parts of Europe where workers typically have collective bargaining rights – particularly in Germany, Tesla's most important market.
Here are the most important things to know about the union struggle:
How did the Tesla Strike gain momentum?
About 130 mechanics at ten Tesla workshops across Sweden quit their jobs on October 27 because the company refused to sign a collective agreement. Tesla does not have a factory in Sweden, but does have a network of service centers.
Since mechanics from Sweden's powerful metal workers' union IF Metall went on strike, other workers across the country have joined in sympathy and refused their services to put pressure on the company.
Members of the country's transportation union say they will stop garbage collection at Tesla service centers starting Sunday. Employees of the supplier Hydro Extrusions, which produces aluminum profiles, refuse to produce a component for Tesla cars.
Other unions say their members won't paint Tesla cars, clean the company's offices or maintain electrical systems in its workshops or at any of its 70 charging stations in Sweden.
Postal workers have stopped delivering license plates for new Tesla vehicles, prompting Tesla to sue the Swedish Transport Agency and demand that it be allowed to take back the license plates, as well as PostNord, the company that supplies the license plates. Tesla lost an early battle in the case, which is still being heard in court.
The boycott escalated and spread to neighboring Nordic countries. As in Sweden, port workers in Denmark do not unload Tesla vehicles that arrive at ports. Unions in Finland and Norway have warned that workers at ports and workshops will join the strike if the dispute is not resolved by Wednesday.
Who else is putting pressure on Musk?
A group of 16 institutional investors, including KLP, Norway's largest pension fund, and PensionDanmark, have written to Tesla CEO Robyn Denholm. They called on the company to reconsider its approach to unions and called for a meeting to discuss further.
PensionDanmark has sold its 476 million kronor ($70 million) stake in the carmaker and said it is adding Tesla to its blacklist “given the spread of the conflict to Denmark and Tesla's recent and very categorical denial, to conclude collective agreements in any country”.
Paedagoernes Pension, Denmark's teachers' pension fund, has sold its 242 million kronor ($35 million) stake in Tesla because the company “cannot compromise” on its core values, CEO Sune Schackenfeldt said in a statement.
The fund spoke to Tesla about workers' rights in March, but Musk's “tough stance against the Nordic union movement” made further investments untenable, it said.
WHY ARE UNIONS SO IMPORTANT IN NORDIC COUNTRIES?
Sweden is one of the most unionized countries in Europe, with nine out of ten employees covered by collective agreements.
Across Scandinavia, unions and employers negotiate agreements on wages and working conditions, with almost no government involvement. It's a system that emerged in the 1930s and is widely recognized as the backbone of a labor market model that has helped workers benefit from decades of economic prosperity.
The system results in fewer strikes than in other countries such as France and Germany because negotiations are the first route to resolving disputes.
Tesla's attempts to win a quick victory in the license plate dispute in Swedish courts “seem to have exactly the opposite effect, making unions more steadfast and generating sympathy drives across the country,” said Matthias Schmidt, an independent auto analyst.
Collective bargaining agreements allow companies to “create a level playing field while avoiding the risk of an employer distorting competition in the industry by imposing poor working conditions on its employees,” says the IF Metall union.
A famous example of the success of this model is the Toys R Us toy chain, which was founded in Sweden in 1995 and employed only non-union workers. The chain refused to sign such collective agreements. The result was a three-month retail union strike that led to a widespread boycott, while other Swedish unions joined sympathy strikes. The company ultimately agreed to sign collective bargaining agreements.
WHAT DID MUSK SAY?
He has never hidden his contempt for unions, write: “This is crazy” on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in response to a tweet about Swedish postal workers refusing to deliver license plates.
In the US, Musk has instigated online battles with the United Auto Workers union and vehemently defended himself against union legal challenges to his company's actions.
“I don’t agree with the idea of unions,” Musk said in an on-stage interview with The New York Times in November. “I just don’t like anything that creates a lord-and-pawn kind of thing.”
Musk, the world's richest person, said unions try to create negativity in a company and denied that Tesla has a hierarchy of wealth primarily because the company gives stock options to everyone.
“Everyone eats at the same table. “Everyone parks in the same lot,” he said.
Musk has accused the UAW of driving General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy, costing many workers their jobs. He said that if Tesla unionizes, “it will be because we deserve it and we have failed in some way.”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
What could happen next?
Union activists in Germany, where Tesla opened its first European Gigafactory in 2022, are on the sidelines. The plant in Grünheide, southeast of Berlin, employs 11,000 people. It makes both Model Y batteries and SUVs.
According to Schmidt, Germany is the company's largest market and has sold 55,000 vehicles so far this year, three times as many as in Sweden.
Union organizers are leading a union drive to recruit Tesla workers and say the numbers are rising quickly.
Workers and unions in Germany are banned from taking part in sympathy strikes, but that could “act as a catalyst for German Tesla production workers to join local unions that can get good deals for them,” Schmidt said.
German union IG Metall says it is concerned about worker safety at the plant and has received reports from “numerous employees” of accidents and health problems that have led to high rates of employee sickness.
Christiane Benner, the union's newly elected chairwoman, has Tesla in her sights.
“We don’t allow union-free zones! Not even on Mars, Elon Musk!” she said in her inaugural speech in October.
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AP writers Tom Krisher in Detroit and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed.